On October 7, 2011 Public Citizen sent a letter to the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) calling for a a deeper and more considered legal review of ACTA. Click here to see letter.

The letter in summary raises issues/concerns regarding:

– The consequences of authorizing special and ex officio border measures in cases of alleged or suspected civil trademark infringement.

– The capacity of customs officials to properly and accurately apply special border measures outside the context of criminal activity, e.g. willful trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy on a commercial scale. Customs officials are not competent to assess infringement of the various discrete intellectual property rights.

– What new legal authority ACTA provides to protect consumers from unsafe products, that is not already provided for in regulatory authority or could not be more comprehensively provided by regulatory authority in cooperation with law enforcement.

– To what extent ACTA produces overlapping or competing institutions for influence over international intellectual property enforcement norms and dispute resolution.

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This blog is a platform to update, share and comment on recent events concerning trade and health (Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), multilateral treaties (TRIPS and its flexibilities), IP laws and policies) as well as the question on how to create an alternative R&D system not based in IP that is guided by health needs and not profits.

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